


anything that brings you back home to me

by surrenderer



Category: Bandom, Empires
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-08
Updated: 2012-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn’t rain on the day of the funeral, and for that, Sean is grateful. Instead, it’s exactly the type of fall day that Tom would’ve loved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	anything that brings you back home to me

Tom dies on a Friday and Sean is there in the hospital when the doctor tells his family. They let him and their friends in because Tom’s parents had said yes, that Tom was going to need all the support he could get and it would be better if his friends were around. And Sean was practically family anyway, at that point.

It isn’t enough.

\--

“I’m sorry, there was too much internal bleeding. The crash did too much damage. We couldn’t save him.” The doctor is looking at Tom’s parents with sorrow, but Sean can barely register the words.

He doesn’t realize what he’s saying until he feels hands on his shoulders and Ryan spins him around so that Sean can whisper his litany of denial into his shoulder despite their height difference. He feels Ryan’s tears soaking his hair, Tom’s mother sobbing in the background, the gasps from his sisters, but none of it changes a thing.

Tom’s dead.

\--

It doesn’t rain on the day of the funeral, and for that, Sean is grateful. Instead, it’s exactly the type of fall day that Tom would’ve loved. Fitting, he thought. The service is short and Sean is grateful for that too. He doesn’t speak, he leaves that to Tom’s immediate family, but he sits in the front with them, Nick and Jon next to him, and the rest of their friends in the rows behind them.

To his credit, Sean doesn’t break down. It’s not open-casket; Tom had made his own post-mortem plans already before this, all these things Sean didn’t know that he’d have to think about so damn soon. All he whispers is a simple “I love you” when they put the ashes in the ground. He tosses a guitar pick in there when no one’s looking. It was one of Tom’s, battered and worn. Sean took it out from between the strings of Tom’s acoustic guitar this morning.

He looks up at the sky; it’s still a clear blue, and everything reminds Sean of Tom.

\--

They put the gravestone in three weeks after the funeral, and Sean is almost relieved. He was getting tired of searching for the right place every single time he came here, having to rely on his own personal landmarks to find his way around.

He doesn’t do much; he sits there and reads sometimes. Once in a while, he breaks out his notebook to write a little, but it’s not like he’s had much inspiration since then. His publisher calls and offers his condolences, but Sean doesn’t return the calls. He floats, almost. No one knows what to do with him, because without Tom around, Sean is lost. Simple as that. Tom kept him anchored and sane, and without him here, Sean is surprised that he hasn’t gone completely batshit yet.

“I wish you were here to see this,” he murmurs as he gets up one afternoon, watching the sun set above the trees. It’s getting colder and the gates will be closed in fifteen minutes. Sean has enough experience with this. He spends at least two afternoons a week here, sitting next to Tom’s grave and talking to him. Or maybe it’s to himself, Sean doesn’t know. He sure as hell can’t tell the difference anymore.

\--

Sean misses Tom with all his heart. It’s nothing new. He wakes up in the morning and looks over at Tom’s side of the bed with a heavy heart. His feet feel like lead; he goes through the motions of daily life and watches everything happen around him. Their friends worry about him; Ryan calls almost nightly to make sure he hasn’t done anything stupid.

Sean thinks about it sometimes, standing in their quiet kitchen and looking around. What it would be like, how easy or difficult the task is. So many ways he could do it too, but it would all lead to the same outcome.

And then he remembers the mutual promises they made so long ago.

_”I’ll never leave you.”_

Tom broke that promise, but not of his own will. Sean has a choice now, and the promise still stands.

He has a feeling that Tom would never forgive him if he took his own life.

\--

It’s been exactly a month and a half since that afternoon at the hospital. Since Tom left that morning to get breakfast for the two of them and never came back. Sean is still grieving, although he’s making steps in moving on. Being alone in their apartment still hurts, and Sean hasn’t picked up his guitar since because the wounds are too fresh. They used to play together at night, him and Tom, just tossing chords back and forth and wondering if they could possibly form a band together. But then Sean’s book got picked up by a small publisher, a tale of a girl named Hayley who came from a broken family, and any plans to break into the music industry were put on hold. Tom did photography work, any jobs he could pick up while Sean did shifts at the coffee shop between writing whatever he could. The book’s not selling _great_ , but it’s moving along steadily enough for his publishers to think twice before dropping him.

They never stopped playing music at night after work and Sean never stopped writing. But between Sean’s job at the café, Tom’s freelance work, and the small portions of money Sean makes from his one and only book, they could pay the bills and live comfortably.

Sean has notebooks of lyrics, but he doesn’t think they’ll ever see the light of day now.

He takes one of them to the cemetery one day. He goes every Friday and stays as long as he can stand it. It doesn’t make him feel any better; if anything, he just misses Tom even more, but it’s better than being alone at home or at work or having to face everyone’s worried inquiries about if he was okay. He’ll take the peace and quiet any day.

“Hey,” he says quietly, sitting down next to the gravestone. He doesn’t know how he appears to strangers, if he’s just some weirdo who sits in the cemetery all day or if they see him for what he actually is: a person nearly insane with grief and regrets.

He wonders if things would’ve turned out any differently if he’d gone with Tom, or if they’d done grocery shopping the day before, or any number of things, really. What-ifs plague him like plot bunnies used to.

People come and go, lay flowers down and then leave again. Sean never brings anything. Tom wouldn’t want flowers, he knows that, so he just sits down and breaks out his paper and pen.

Sean doesn’t write anything today, he just doodles in the margins for a while until the breeze picks up. It makes him shiver, looking up around him. There’s no one there, which he hadn’t noticed. Did they all leave when he wasn’t paying attention? Sean doesn’t know, but he stands up to leave as well, because he’s cold now and his hands are numb. He hasn’t spent quite as much time here as he usually does, but he’ll probably make it up next week anyway.

“I’ll be back next Friday,” he says to the marker on the ground. “I love you.”

He certainly doesn’t expect to get an answer back. The sounds come from the wind, but it’s unmistakably Tom’s voice. “I love you too.” Sean starts, looking around wildly. There was no way. That had to be a figment of his imagination.

Out loud, he says, “Oh my god, I’ve finally cracked.” But he’s pretty sure he didn’t imagine the soft chuckle.

And he’s definitely sure that he’s hallucinating when he actually sees Tom in front of him.

It’s not Tom, not really. But it looks like him, like Sean is looking at him through a veil. He’s a little blurry around the edges and mostly gray, but there are hints of colors in his plaid shirt and jeans and battered Converse. He wasn’t wearing that the day he left the apartment and got hit, but Sean’s not going to dwell on inaccuracies right now. “Hey, Sean.” His voice is soft, airy, and Sean almost has to strain to hear him.

“Tom,” he says, staring at him. “What… what’s going on? Am I going crazy?” Sean thinks he might be. He’s imagining things. He’s imagining that Tom’s… ghost, or whatever he is, is in front of him. The grief has finally cracked him. Not that Sean hasn’t always been a little crazy, but he’s never hallucinated that his dead boyfriend is in front of him again.

To be honest, he’s surprised that it’s taken him this long.

This eerie, ghostly version of Tom shakes his head. “I don’t think so. But then again, I’m sure that’s not much of an assurance.” Sean, against his own will, takes a small step forward. It’s Tom, even if it’s a ghost or hallucination or even a demon from some horror movie. His voice is getting stronger now, less of a whisper than an echo.

“How?” Sean asks, clenching his fists at his sides. If he’s going crazy, there shouldn’t be an explanation. He may have an overactive imagination, but it’s not _that_ bad. He doesn’t think that his brain will make up excuses for his hallucinations.

Tom shrugs. “To be honest… this is a one-time thing. I don’t understand the logistics, but when we’ve got people still here and they can’t move on, I guess it’s easier to come back. Just once, though, that’s the same for everyone, regardless. And you can only see one person. Death isn’t really all that terrible. The being, I mean. It’s weird. But anyway, yeah. It’s because of you I’m here.” They’re standing close now, and if Tom was actually here, actually alive and with Sean, they could hug and kiss and god, Sean would do anything for just one more moment like that. Seeing Tom again, in whatever form, just opens up all those half-healed wounds. Sean hasn’t even been able to look at the few photos of them together since the crash.

“I… well, I guess I can’t really say I haven’t been _that_ badly off.” Because he really has. He’s a bystander in his own life now, just following well-worn paths. Tom’s always been the one to lead him off those beaten tracks. “I just—I just miss you.”

Tom smiles sadly at him. “Yeah. I miss you too. But I know what you think sometimes. And I’ll tell you this much. I will gladly take a lifetime without you if it means that you don’t join me even a minute before it’s your time.” He’s serious about this, Sean can tell. Even when they were making those promises to each other about their life together and how nothing could tear them apart, he wasn’t as completely certain about it as he is about this.

Death changes people. Sean thinks that maybe it’s changed him too.

“You’ve got so much more to do,” Tom continues, sighing and pacing around in front of Sean. “Don’t worry about me. I’m in good hands, and I want you to be happy and move on. I’m _definitely_ not worth a lifetime of sorrow and being alone.” Always so self-deprecating, Sean thinks with a small smile. He shakes his head, reaching out for Tom in a moment of reflex before he remembers. Tom’s not actually here with him. He still doesn’t know if this is some crazy dream he’s having or if Tom’s ghost is actually here, but it doesn’t change the fact that Tom’s still dead and that this isn’t him.

“I won’t. I thought about it a lot,” he says honestly. If anyone deserves honesty from Sean, it’s Tom. “I thought about how easy it would be and wondered if I could see you again if I did, and then I remembered that I swore to you that I wouldn’t do it. I figure… you left me, but not because you wanted to. So our promises still stand.” He gives Tom a shaky smile and is relieved to get one back.

“Good. I can’t stay long, but I knew that you needed to see me again. Concentrate on yourself first, okay?” Tom says quietly, turning to look around behind him. At what, Sean doesn’t know, but he won’t ask. Tom’s part of a different world now, and Sean can’t join him there. It hurts, but it’s an accepting kind of hurt, the same kind that you get when you realize there’s absolutely nothing that you can do anymore.

Sean nods. “I did. I miss you a lot, and we shouldn’t have been torn apart like that… but I’m glad.” Glad for what, he doesn’t know. That Tom’s not being tormented in the pits of Hell? That he seems to be okay, barring the fact that he’s _dead_?

Sean will settle for that last bit.

Tom seems to understand, at least. “I love you. I always will.” He hesitates a moment before moving closer. To Sean, it’s like the chill of a breeze, but without the wind itself. He doesn’t _feel_ Tom’s hand on his cheek, but he knows it’s there.

“I love you too,” he whispers. Tom smiles, but he’s fading, and fading fast. Sean almost wants to protest, to grab at the air and keep him here, but there’s a small part of him that knows there’s no point. Tom’s almost gone now, and Sean tries to give him one last smile before he’s just smiling at empty air.

He sinks to his knees afterwards, in front of Tom’s grave marker. There’s a real breeze ruffling his hair now, but he doesn’t think that he imagines Tom’s lips on his forehead for a moment before it’s gone. Sean hasn’t cried since that afternoon in the hospital, but he’s not surprised to feel tears on his cheeks now.

It’s such a Tom thing to do, coming back to make sure Sean would do all right without him. Sean shakes his head, looking at the marker and running his fingers along the edge before standing up. He wipes his tears and takes a shuddering breath, and then another.

He looks up at the sky again, and maybe he truly smiles for the first time since Tom’s death.

He’s not okay, but he doesn’t feel quite as alone anymore.


End file.
